Gin Rummy Express is gin rummy for two players, each on their own phone, or for one player against a bot. Draw, discard, and go out by knocking with ten or less in deadwood - or by going gin, with none at all.
About Gin Rummy Express
Gin is the two-player rummy: ten cards each, melds of three or four of a rank or of three or more in a suit, and the points left in your hand - the deadwood - against you. Gin Rummy Express keeps the game and drops the table: one phone hosts, the other joins it with a short code, and nothing needs a server or an account. With nobody to play, a bot takes the other seat.
The deal turns up one card. The player after the dealer may take it or pass, then the dealer, and if both pass the first player draws from the stock. A turn is a draw - the stock or the top discard - and a discard. With ten or less in deadwood a player may knock instead of discarding, and the phone lays both hands out the way a careful player would: the knocker's melds with the least deadwood, the other player's melds and lay-offs leaving them the least. An undercut - the other player's deadwood no more than the knocker's - turns the hand round.
Scoring is the American game's by default: the difference in deadwood for a knock, 25 for gin, 25 for an undercut, and at the end of the game 25 for every hand won and 100 for the game, doubled for a shutout. A table can play Pagat's bonuses instead, big gin, and Oklahoma Gin, where the upcard sets the knock limit. A game is to 100 unless the table chooses 150, 200 or 250.
Made for the journey
- No internet, no mobile data. The phones talk to each other directly, so a game carries on through tunnels, ghats and stretches with no signal at all.
- Everyone on their own phone. Nobody passes a handset round, and nobody sees a hand that is not theirs.
- Short of players? Bots take the empty seats, each with a setting for how closely it follows the play.
- A dropped link is not the end of the hand. A phone that loses the connection can join the same table again.
- No sign-in and no real money. Install it, open it, play.
How playing together works, and tips for trains, buses and flights
Features
- Gin rummy for two players, or one against a bot
- The upcard offer, the stock and the discard pile, as at a real table
- Knock with ten or less, go gin with none, and big gin if the table plays it
- Both hands laid out at a knock, lay-offs and undercuts worked out for you
- The deadwood counted as you play, against the knock limit
- American bonuses by default, or Pagat's; Oklahoma Gin as a choice
- Games to 100, 150, 200 or 250, with boxes, the game bonus and the shutout
- Connects over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Google Nearby, with no internet
- No sign-in, no server, no real money